Waking Up
by Shiny Pichu-chan
Summary: SPOILERS FOR ANIME-ONLY FANS! Story of the events following Knuckle and Shoot's fight with Youpi.


A/N: Maybe a one-shot? Maybe multi-chaptered? I don't know yet. All I know is that these two dorks are ruining my life. Enjoy.

* * *

Ultimately, it is the sound of chirping birds and the feel of a gentle breeze against his bare skin that wakes Shoot.

Though it takes him a minute to distinguish this reality from the land of dreams. After all, most recently, dreams had been an escape from the horrors he faced in the real world. Most of the time, anyway. But he could certainly take the occasional nightmare for the payoff of ant-less dreams the rest of the time. Not that he had much opportunity to sleep anyway this past week.

Slowly opening his eyes and blinking in the artificial light from the ceiling is the first thing that tips Shoot off that he was truly awake. The sight of him being in a hospital room is the second.

Glancing to his left is an open window, letting in the sounds of nature and a soft breeze that makes it easier to breathe in a space smelling of too much cotton and disinfectant. Shoot inhales carefully as his line of sight shifts back to the ceiling and his eye drift shut. He exhales, trying to rid himself of the dull ache reemerging throughout his entire body due to his regained consciousness.

The next time Shoot opens his eyes, his vision is considerably less fuzzy. Yet his eyelids feel just as heavy as the rest of his body, as if he hasn't slept in years. But the pain wasn't so bad. He expected it to be more prominent considering the amount of bandages he could feel wrapped all over him just underneath the thin hospital garb. But maybe he'd been drugged for the pain. Yeah. That made sense. His thought process was a little slow at the moment.

That must have been why it took him so long to realize the second body in the room with him.

Granted, Shoot hears it before seeing it. Once the chirping of the birds outside dies down, he's able to catch the softest of breathing, just on the edge of a snore but not quite nasally enough. And Shoot recognizes the sound. So he knows it's Knuckle even before he turns his head to the right to see the fellow Beast Hunter fast asleep in a chair at the side of the bed.

Shoot feels all the weight atop his body leave him. He doesn't really even process himself sitting up despite the injuries to his torso until the pain _actually _hits him like a sharp stab to his abdomen. But it doesn't make him regret the action. Because now he can get a better look at Knuckle and confirm that it isn't some vivid hallucination that he's really _there_ and _alive _and_ okay _and that maybe everything actually turned out alright.

"…Knuckle," Shoot breathes, and his voice comes out small and cracked. The utterance serves no purpose other than to doubly confirm that this isn't a dream, because Shoot knows Knuckle won't hear such a murmur if he's so deep into sleep he isn't snoring up a storm.

Without entirely being aware of it, Shoot faintly smiles at the sight.

Knuckle is straddling the chair with the back at front so he can rest one arm across the top and use it as a makeshift pillow for the side of his head. Though at one point it had likely been both his arms, but one had slipped off to now hang limply at his side, so that only one was suffering from the drool at the corner of his mouth currently wetting the white of his sleeve.

Now that Shoot stopped to think about it, neither of them had had a good night's sleep in almost a month. Knuckle probably more so, while he took on the extra task of caring for all the dogs left behind during the selection, despite Shoot's (half-hearted) protests.

There were a million and one things Shoot wanted to ask of Knuckle. But they could certainly wait if it meant waking the other up.

Only then does Shoot consider taking in the rest of the room, with its small, private space consisting only of his bed, a nightstand to his left, two chairs—one backless and cushiony and the other a simple metal folding chair which Knuckle currently occupied, a larger table against the wall at the back of the room, and a small, personal bathroom visible past a second door halfway open. What little free space is left is occupied by his or other's belongings. On the table in the back rests his tattered, bloodied clothes, spare hands and cage. At least, he feels them there, while they're wrapped up in the usual violet cloth, hidden from view.

Moral's pipe is in the room, leaning heavily against the far corner of the room, which relieves Shoot greatly. As students and teacher all their things are piled up together. Bags and backpacks and things that _should_ be in their hotel room or Knov's apartment—have they been_ sleeping_ here this whole time?

The thought makes Shoot want to cry. But he doesn't. That would wake Knuckle for sure. And it helps that he notices the bags of dog food not very well hidden under the table against the wall, and wants to laugh instead because of course his partner would be sentimental enough to sneak out of the hospital to feed the strays somewhere just outside the notice of nurses and doctors.

He looks to Knuckle again, where his ridiculous position hasn't changed in the slightest, except for more drool leaking out from the side of his mouth. Shoot touches at his own to keep from chuckling aloud, and then his eyes are scanning the room for a certain something, which he finds soon enough underneath the nightstand.

From there, Shoot glances back at his pile of belongings on the table.

His eyes flicker cautiously to the slumbering Knuckle one more time, before his gaze focuses back on the task at hand. Then, with slow, careful movements, Shoot lifts his arm up toward the wrapped items. He feels the familiar sensation of his nen radiating off his body and most strongly in his right arm, but it's as weak as he expected it to be while his mind and body aren't back to one hundred percent. It takes a minute for him to pull his hands free from their fabric prison, and when they are finally out and hovering in the open air his control is frail at best. But it will be enough for what he wants to accomplish.

All three dismembered hands move slowly with their weak emerald glow over towards the nightstand at Shoot's command. Two of them take hold of the spare blanket lying underneath it initially, but the third joins them once they unfold the cloth to spread it open completely. Shoot exhales his previously deep inhale. It was a heavier blanket than it looked.

Once unfolded, Shoot resumes his careful manipulations through the movement of his arm that is only slightly trembling, observing his additional hands floating over to Knuckle and moving up to hover above him.

"Ah—" Shoot makes a cut-off noise of surprise when the hands let go too soon and the blanket abruptly falls right on top of the sleeping Beast Hunter, covering him entirely.

Shoot feels warmth rush to his face and he freezes up when the humanoid shape underneath the blanket flinches with a high snort at the sudden new weight upon him and begins thrashing about in understandable confusion.

"The hell—?!" Shoot can hear the muffled exclamation while Knuckle discovers the blanket is too long to be punched off him, and he instead grabs a fistful of the fabric to rip it mostly off him so at least his face is free.

The swiftness in which Knuckle's irritation dissolves away at the sight of Shoot surprises the amputee and for some reason makes his flush deepen.

"U-uh," Shoot stammers when Knuckle doesn't say or do anything immediately, and he looks away while calling back his hands as if they were misbehaved children, "S-sorry, I was just—"

"_SHOOT_."

And that is all the warning Shoot receives before he finds himself being tackled on the small hospital bed and enthusiastically squeezed of all remaining life by Knuckle's strong, warm arms. Shoot is nearly knocked right off the mattress but Knuckle seems to hold himself back at the last second despite the speed in which he closed the distance between them.

The embrace hurts, but he's not about to tell Knuckle to stop. Shoot feels like crying again, but by some miracle manages to hold it in. It probably helps that Knuckle is crying, since Shoot has never been able to do so while his partner sheds enough tears for the both of them.

But he puts on a brave face anyway, like always. As if he's never been the one to lose his composure.

"You don't have to cry about it…" but Shoot is smiling while Knuckle can't see it, his face buried in the taller man's shoulder.

"S-shaddap!" Knuckle half-sobs, and his hold tightens ever so slightly, "I ain't cryin'! Just—" he sniffs deeply, "…S-shut up! I'll kill you! Bastard…"

Shoot can feel a lump forming in his throat, and he wants to say something. Anything. _I'm fine. It's okay. Are you alright? I'm sorry. I'm glad you're okay. I'm so sorry. _But he knows if he opens his mouth now he won't be able to form a single word.

So he bites down the urge to sob, and curls into the other. Without really being aware of it, his arm rises up to grip desperately tight at the fabric of clothes at Knuckle's back. And doesn't let go for as long as Knuckle weeps into his shoulder.


End file.
